Teaching Interpersonal Communication to Troubled Families

Assumptions family members make about each other exert considerable influence on communication in families. Rigidly held assumptions restrict the flow of information, reinforcing counterproductive behavioral patterns. Combining psychoanalytic and structural components, this paper offers a new approach to family intervention that addresses itself to the exchange of information within troubled families. Groups of families convene for a series of camping weekends. The shared life experience in a recreational setting plus the use of a teaching model help family members to break through rigid conceptualizations of themselves and others. In following the observational model, which slows down and fosters reciprocation in communication, family members pursue the following steps: (a) observe each other; (b) compare notes with a co-observer; (c) share observations with those observed; and (d) receive feedback from the observed.     

Characteristics and Predictive Dimensions of Women Who Make Nontraditional Vocational Choices

Women in nontraditional occupations possess commonly described “masculine” traits, and profeminist attitudes. They likely prefer male company and eagerly maintain their feminine identity.     

ALAIN LOCKE AND COMMUNITY

Locke consistently argues for the importance of cosmopolitan identity, i.e., cultural-citizenship. Paradoxically, he also argues for the importance of particular, local, and racial/ethnic identities. People have a natural instinct that Locke terms a consciousness of kind, to bond with persons in relatively closed communities. Communities are not natural social groups for Locke, but historical social constructions. I argue that Locke's ethical and conceptual paradox is revolved by considering the relationship between instincts and particular social groups as asymmetrical; that groups are inherently constructed, and thus require continual revaluation. Particular communities are, at best, Gemeinschaft.     

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AMONG EMPLOYEES,MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION STYLE,AND EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION: REPLICATION AND EXTENSION

Portions of three previous studies relating individual differences in employee satisfaction and one study relating Management Communication Style (MCS) to employee satisfaction were replicated across four organizational contexts. Major findings were supportive of the generalizability of the results observed in the previous studies. The interface of superior-subordinate relations and their impact on employee satisfaction were examined through perceptions of employees with regard to the MCS of upper management and the task behaviors (supervision and administration) of their immediate superiors. Results were supportive of the MCS conceptualization and indicated that MCS of immediate superior and MCS of upper management had their primary impact on different dimensions of employee satisfaction. Perceptions of superiors' task behaviors were found to have different impact on employees satisfaction for different organizational contexts. Variability in employee satisfaction predictable from individual employee differences and that predictable from superior-subordinate interface were found to have little overlap. It is recommended that both the individual differences (trait) and superior-subordinate interface (situational) approaches to the study of communication in organizational contexts be continued since the two generate independent predictions of unique variance.